I think I was the best baseball player I ever saw.

When I'm not hitting, I don't hit nobody. But, when I'm hitting, I hit anybody.

"And my father didn't have money for me to go to college. And at that particular time they didn't have black quarterbacks, and I don't think I could have made it in basketball, because I was only 5′ 11". So I just picked baseball."

Baseball is a game, yes. It is also a business. But what is most truly is is disguised combat. For all its gentility, its almost leisurely pace, baseball is violence under wraps.

What you are thinking, what shape your mind is in, is what makes the biggest difference of all.

I always enjoyed playing ball, and it didn't matter to me whether I played with white kids or black. I never understood why an issue was made of who I played with, and I never felt comfortable, when I grew up, telling other people how to act

I think I was programmed to do good things when I came into the majors. I knew how to play.